'Twas Our 2013 Christmas

'Twas December, the last month of twenty-thirteen,

and our days were so full, they required caffeine.

There were presents to wrap, Christmas cards to mail,

and, ok, a new addiction to watch (this show about jail).

There were Indianapolis sites to hit before we left for a week,

including a house full of 86 trees  - some new, some antique.

Those 52,000 lights kept that house in high degrees,

they don't even turn on their heat - they just turn on those trees.

People tour their house for four hours every night,

and they don't even charge you to see this holiday sight.

We found another dose of cheer at Indy's Museum of Art

We heard there were pre-WWI decorations, so we had to take part.

Little did we know they had much more there for you - 

carolers, Christmas crafts, even a live reindeer, too.

Then it was down to Evansville for one week's time,

full of family, food, games - just sublime.

We slept in late and laughed more than enough.

Seeing Christmas end is always so tough.

But Christmas Eve night I sat and stared at this tree,

and had time to stop and reflect on what Christmas truly means to me.

Then soon after that, it was back on the road.

But this time, a van! three kids! Parent mode.

We drove two cute girls, and one cute boy,

up to our house, to prolong our Christmas joy.

Their parents came too, just a few hours behind us
I'm sure they were wondering in what state they would find us.

But their kids were so sweet, and we kept all three alive!
They were dreaming of sugar plums when their parents arrived.

We woke up, ate cereal, some of us chased the cat,

then headed to the Children's Museum, the nation's biggest, at that.

There was the Yule Slide, the dinosaurs, pirates in a play,

and enough other things to entertain us all day.

After a downtown tour and dinner, they were back in their car,

and we were back to wishing our families weren't spread so far.

But don't worry, it's not over! We really spread our Christmas thin.

That night was our gift-giving celebration (Amazon for the win!)

To Michael: A trivia lover's complete world guide

and a remote control helicopter - the boy could have cried.

For Maddie: A helmet, to protect my riding head,

plus Boggle (come play!) and a five-year journal, to jot in before bed.

A package from Utah brought more even more Christmas treasure,

including these childhood keepsakes - their value has no measure.

You may see a silly stuffed dog with a torn hole in his knee,

but that's my lifelong friend, sweet Delta Doggie.

Plus a Pocahontas nintendo game that I can't believe works anymore,

but it's hopeless... 9-year-old Maddie will always have the high score.

And don't mind the tired face in that picture up there,

I've been sniffling and coughing, still looking worse for the wear. 

But even sick days can't take away from our great Christmas break,

I mean, look at this last gift, for heaven's sake.

A snow cone machine. For reals. Can you believe it?

From sweet friends who said they saw it and just couldn't leave it.

They remembered how hard I searched for snow cones last summer,

and looks like this year, the search won't be such a bummer!

We'll have our very own snow cone party, be there or be square.

But first we'll get through winter, and real snow. Beware.

That was our Christmas. It flew by, so fast.

I can't believe it's already added to Christmases past!

So now, to New Year's. It will be fun too, right?

Merry Christmas to all, 

and to all a good night.

The Post-School Weekend

Life has slowed down a little around here, and that is a welcome feeling! Michael rocked his finals and his hardest semester yet. We are a little intimidated by next semester (supposedly the worst of the four-year dental experience), but we will just take it one day at a time! We celebrated at the Cheesecake Factory and the Hobbit on Friday, and Michael even went to Sephora with me for a minute even though it was supposed to be his night :) Good man. If you know Michael, you know he's got some skills at getting things for free - so here he is with his celebratory (free) pina colada at our celebratory (free) movie outing after our celebratory (free) dinner. Crazy kid.

And since there are so, so many good movies adding up on my to-see list, we even knocked out another one the next night. I'm telling you, this change of pace has been so great! The Naylors came along to see Frozen with us, and I was loving every minute of it. I had no expectations for that movie because I honestly haven't seen or heard a lot about it. But I was in love with it. Cute songs, funny characters, great voices (why did I not know Kristen Bell was a singer? Why can I not sing like Idina Menzel? These are big questions). And Thomas Naylor's constant commentary (snowman! reindeer! snowman! princess!) makes for big improvements on any movie going experience. He and the movie had me cracking up so much. Maybrie loved it too, as long as the music didn't build up too much. She requested that we leave every time that happened.

And then Sunday we had some friends over who also suffer the effects of finals week for a new end-of-the-semester tradition. We each created parts of the Cafe Rio experience that we so miss, and combined forces for an extremely tasty Cafe Rio recreation. At one point Maybrie was heard exclaiming, "This is the BEST. PARTY. EVER!" But I'm pretty sure we were all missing out on whatever the kids were doing at that point. But it seems like everyone had a good time, in their own way.

Look at that deliciousness. I even picked up some tinfoil "bowls" to really get in the right mindset for this experience. Even though it tasted SO good, we all ended up reflecting on why oh why it still doesn't taste the same. Who's sending me a Cafe Rio salad for Christmas? Anyone? If you want to give our copycats a try, we found them all conveniently located together here. 

Then we finished the night trying to find a new TV series to waste time on together, ended up three episodes into this one, and then proceeded to have bad dreams about it. Well, just one of us had bad dreams. I wish I could say it was Michael... but, I wouldn't be fooling anyone.

After a totally celebratory and relaxing weekend, it's hard to get back to the semi-grind on Monday! Back to work for me, and Michael is still coming downtown with me to study on campus all day. He has to take Part I of his boards examinations in January, so no lasting rest for the weary. We are so looking forward to Christmas! I sent a flat rate package home to Utah today that might very well explode before arriving there, despite my layers and layers of tape. I have way too much fun picking out presents for my cute family. The wrapping part ... not as much fun. Not nearly as much fun.

Eight more days to Christmas! And I haven't even watched Elf yet. Yikes.

Football, Turkey, etc.

Before I start this post, I need to ask you something. Have you ever been to a tiny dance recital? As in, tiny little girls just barely old enough to understand that they're at a dance recital, up on the stage following their teacher's hints in the front row? I hope you have. If you're my parents, you went to way too many of those. 

And if you have been to one, do you remember the little girls who forget some of their tiny dance, look around, realize what is supposed to be happening, and then they go into fast forward mode because they will not let any move they've learned go un-danced? Rather than just catch up to where the group is at, they have to speed through the entire portion of the routine that they zoned out for, before finally catching back up with their neighbors. Those girls are in every group, and thank goodness for that, because every eye on the audience is usually watching them with a big grin.

My point is, that's how I'm running my blog during these busy months that always feel like a sprint to the end of the year. I could just look around and realize that what's passed is passed, and I should tell you about today. BUT. No. First I'm going to go in fast forward mode and speed through all the happenings that have gone un-blogged as of late. Here.we.go.

BYU vs. Notre Dame - what a day. The best part was having Michael's friend/old roommate/old mission companion/tandem bike buddy (story for another day) visiting us for the game. We miss our Utah friends! We just loved having him here and catching up with him.

Enough about the best part...let's talk about the worst. Ooooh my goodness, people, those temperatures. I have never been so cold in so many layers of clothing. It was a record cold game for that Notre Dame stadium. We were so grateful we could be there for that monumental moment. .... 

Really though, it was actually pretty fun. Survival mode was entertaining, and we made friends with the fun Notre Dame fans all around us. I mean, they couldn't hate us too much, right? (Scoreboard.)

We went up early that day and had fun exploring campus. We saw a bagpipes concert, the players' walk through the crowd, a lecture about Mitt Romney and the effect Mormonism had on his campaign, and ate lunch at The Huddle. We met up with another one of Michael's friends from Evansville for part of the day, and we all loved seeing the beautiful campus. 

Thanksgiving finally came around this year (wrong week, am I right?) and we were so happy to head down to Evansville for some family time. Rachel came in from Colorado and Katie from DC, and Diana's family from Iowa. We even got to see Michael's grandparents, who were visiting from Utah. I love being with family! Nothing is more refueling than that. That could also be due to the amount of food we ate. So, so much food. I don't think we were ever hungry for 6 days straight.

Then it was home to this little guy! Our tree is just tiny small, and pretty simple, and I am in love with it. I stare it so often. Christmas trees bring such a sweet spirit into homes, and I love having our own small version of those things. Homes, Christmases, family... just our size.

The last few weeks winter has been raging. Single-digit temperatures with wind chills stealing even the few degrees we have. Humidity really does a number with cold weather. I now believe that no one can own too many pairs of slipper socks. They must be kept on at.all.times. 

Also, I'm currently accepting applications for a Christmas present wrapper. I'll pay you in English Toffee and good conversation.